Transition!

We are about to experience a huge transition in the life of the Fellowship during the remodeling and construction phase.

Our transition may feel a little like adolescence sometimes.  We may have confusion and chaos, uncertainty and anxiety; but we also have the chance to have excitement and fun.

Here’s the scary part:  We need to totally move out of the building during construction, which is planned to begin in August 2018 to February or March 2019. 

We cannot be in the Fellowship building at all.  All meetings and uses of this building will be moved.  
  
This includes:

·      Sunday Services and School of Spirit activities

·      Administration, Secretary and Minister’s offices

·      Committee Meetings; more than 63 a month.

·      Plus: moving and storage of all furniture and supplies.

Sunday Services:  As yet, we do not know where our Sunday services will be located.  They will probably be at another local church building or in a school. 
  

Office Space:  Office space is going to be difficult to find, as there is just not much available in this area, and we are looking for something comfortable, local, and accessible.   

All the other meetings:  boards, covenant groups, spiritual, educational and social groups will have to meet other places for the duration.  

Suggestions:  We are creating a list of suggestions for where to hold meeting of all different sizes.  If you have ideas or suggestions, please suggest them to Carol the Office Manager, a building committee member (buildingcommittee@bvuuf.org) or on the building committee blog.

Just like adolescence, we can guide the journey by our actions:

Exercise good communication:  we may need more reliance on neighborhood networks and social media.

Stay educated:  keep abreast of the services at the Building Committee Blog:

http://bvuufbuildingcommittee.blogspot.com/

Realize: that our community may become less based in geography and more in relationships.

Practice patience: with each other, the staff, the construction process, the neighbors, the Building Committee, etc.

At the end of our transition, besides a more beautiful and spacious fellowship building, we hope to have a confident fellowship with more self-knowledge, a closer community, and deeper compassion

Neighborhood Outreach Meeting, Sunday, February 18th, 1:30 - 3:30, in the Sanctuary:  The Fellowship is reaching out to our neighbors to let them know we are planning a remodel, and give them the opportunity to make connections with us.   

We hope to have a positive experience and minimize the impact on the neighborhood during construction.   

We need a few people to commit to bringing cookies for our neighbors, as we hope to sweeten the information with some sweet treats. Contact the building committee if you are able to donate 3 dozen cookies to this event.

Happy Birthday Building Committee!

Click to enlarge.

As of this month your Building Committee has been hard at work for a year (how time flies when you are having fun). Over the last two months, December and January, we have had a series of meeting with fellowship groups to review our conceptual design and complete the next phase called Schematic Design. This will lead to our submitting a site plan architectural review to the city of Lafayette in late February.

The building committee and our project architect, Rich Keilman, met and gathered design input from the following:

• Sanctuary: Ministers, acoustic engineer, Tad Koriath, Deborah Mensch. Set up for Sunday services, dais size & shape, choir location, musician location, seating, flow in and out, audio and video systems,

Click to enlarge.

• Administrative & Minister’s office wing: Ministers, Carol Pranschke (office manager) and staff, De Anna Hoyle. Private & open space offices, location of offices, size or offices, safety considerations, mini-kitchen, 

• School of Spirit wing: De Anna Hoyle & SOS staff, minister. Size and layout of meeting rooms, placement and number of doors, storage, multi-use of rooms, room partitions, and room design for toddlers,

• Hospitality (kitchen): Millie Montgomery, Rosemary Arp, Mary Gibb. Social hall functions, kitchen layout, kitchen doors, kitchen work space, location of welcoming table, coat closet, various social hall uses, flow of people into services and then to coffee social time,

• Site Planning: Building committee members, landscape designer, and civil engineer. Landscape design, storm water flow & retention, parking lot, location of the barn & trash bins.

In addition to these meetings we have received input from others via email, hallway discussions, and phone calls. Thanks to all who participated in these sessions and provided the committee with valuable information.

All of this information is reflected in the next evolution of our design documents that are now posted to this blog.  Larger versions are posted in the foyer of the Fellowship.  Please disregard earlier iterations.